An SG20 Christmas
by albert12
Summary: It is Christmas, and all is well in the Milky Way- or is it? A slightly fluffy christmas adventure for both SG teams 1 and 20. *Part II uploaded*
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** Well, I've been planing this story since last Christmas, but I didn't really mange to get it typed up until a few days ago.

**Disclaimer:** Stargate belongs to MGM. Ethan (who I am borrowing without proper permision) is property of** rmonroe**. _My extreme apologies if I wrote him incorrectly._

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**SG-20**

**Christmas Special**

Major Jason Terrell considered this the most disastrous mission he set out on yet. A week ago, he and the rest of SG-20 had been invited to the SGC Christmas party- an honor traditionally reserved for the teams that had done something truly noteworthy.

_Yea. Releasing a galaxy-menacing race of super - telepaths definitely counts as "Noteworthy"._ He thought to himself, looking around.

The other human on his team, Christine Rastilon, seemed to be enjoying herself. Her, Samantha Carter-_no, Samantha O'Neill _he reminded himself, and someone else from the science department were deep in discussion about something. As near as he could guess from the few words he could catch, they were discussing something about Asgard weapons and something called an "F-307".

Elsewhere, Ka'cha'nay seemed to be attempting to tell General Laundry about the fact that that they were out of eggnog. The large alien had consumed most of it himself, not noticing that it was the alcoholic kind. His normally hard-to-interpret speech became even worse with the unwitting addition of quite a bit of alcohol.

Jason guessed this would end up badly. The Unas had never been exposed to earth-alcohol before, and it tended to be a great deal more potent than that found elsewhere in the galaxy.

A crash interrupted his thoughts. He spun.

The cause was instantly obvious- Christine had suddenly collapsed.

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Dr. Daniel Jackson was not in a good mood, a particularly odd thing for him, and particularly on Christmas eve- a day he usually enjoyed.

However, he was in the conclusion of a particularly poor day. To start with, he had spent the day trying to find any information he could about the Ancient's few encounters with the Dryad race- with next to no luck. So far, all he had found was four vague references- all in one of the worst dialects of Ancient he had encountered.

To top that off, his wife and son had both caught colds. Vala and Ethan had both spent the day watching DVDs and sneezing- a combination that did not aid his concentration. Nor did the fact that they were now listening to "_VeggieTales_" for the seventeenth time that day.

He had just settled down on the couch with them, and was finishing a nice cup of homemade hot chocolate courtesy of the _Daedalus_ -three large, steaming mugs had beamed in a moment before with a "Merry Christmas" note from Cadwell- when something attacked the front door.

No, he decided, attacked was the wrong word. A stray cat had apparently taken a dislike to it's reflection in the downstairs patio door, and decided to have an all-out fight with it. He figured he needed to get down there before the wayward animal managed to destroy something.

It didn't help his mood any that Ethan's Legos had found their way onto the basement stairs.

By the time he yanked open the door, he was just about half an inch from loosing his temper. What happened next, however, drove Legos- and every other annoyance- straight from his mind.

The cat, a scrawny little kitten he had never seen before, looked up at him- and spoke.

The voice was rough, halting- human sounds coming from a throat never designed to make them- but it spoke.

"Daniel of Earth."

For a full second, the linguist didn't know what to say. Finally, he managed a stuttered "Yes?"

"Your Stargate Command needs you. The Dryads attack earth."

This time, Daniel didn't just look startled. This time, he almost fainted.

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**Author's Note:** Yep. I left a cliffhanger. On Christmas.

(Don't worry- I will be uploading the second chapter on Christmas day,so you don't have to wait that long to find out how it turns out.)

**rmonroe:** My extreme apologies if I wrote Ethan incorrectly. I tried to message you with the site's messaging feature, and I didn't really have time for an extensive re-write. Please forgive me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: **This is the second and final chapter of the Christmas special. Enjoy!

**SG-20**

**Christmas Special, Part II**

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The room was in chaos even before the Off-world Activation alarm went off. Samantha O'Neill and Jason both knelt by the suddenly-collapsed Christine. On the bright side, she only appeared to be asleep. On the not-so-bright side, there seemed to be no reason why a perfectly healthy twenty-five year old -who had been drinking nothing stronger than root beer- would suddenly collapse.

Then the alarm went off, and true chaos broke out as everyone rushed to assigned posts, or to check that their temporary replacements had everything under control.

Worried as he was about Christine, Jason found himself rushing to the control room- to find things were not as they should be. The Iris was open, and none of the personnel seemed to be moving to close it.

Jason rushed forward to plant his hand on the scanner and saw why everything was messed up. Three Dryads stood on the ramp- two females and a male.

One of the females looked up, and he felt the clouding calm enter his mind.

But this time, it seemed different. It was still strong, but he felt as though it was somehow- weakened. As though it was pitting itself against a greater power.

With a titanic effort, he wrenched his mind free. His hand came down on the scanner.

The great trinium leaves of the Iris slid closed not second too soon- something massive thudded against the barrier.

The three on the ramp collapsed instantly.

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Daniel couldn't recall when he had seen the SGC this confused. By the time he had got to the control room, he was certain that something major had just happened- but what, he could not tell. Most of the control room personnel were unconscious, save for a young major from one of the newer SG teams.

"What happened?" Daniel asked.

"Dryad attack." was the response.

"Dryad? Are you".. He glanced at the mission patch on the man's uniform. SG-20. The first team to encounter the Dryad.

"Quite certain." Jason replied, endeavoring to wake General O'Neill. "It was strange, though. They seemed- weak. Almost like they were spending most of their power fighting off something-"

At that second, the general muttered something about an Al'kesh and rolled over, socking Jason in the teeth.

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It was two hours later when the whole picture was pieced together, even as reports trickled in from other areas. The unconscious Dryads were relocated to the infirmary, where Dr. Lam discovered that their telepathic centers were apparently burned out- according to her, they would awake with permanent retrograde amnesia, a threat to no one and nothing.

A small Dryad spacecraft was discovered in orbit, apparently an unmanned drone. However, it, too, seemed to have burned itself out. It self-destructed before anyone could retrieve it.

Apparently, Daniel's incident was not isolated- at roughly the same time, many animals- some pets, some strays, some farm animals- had spoken. Some had warned of the Dryad attack. Some had complained about food or bedding. One isolated report indicated a cat demanding a gold-plated windowsill.

Christine joined them a while later, having suddenly and mysteriously recovered, with no clue why she had passed out. She entered the control room as Walter was relaying a report about a farmer in Kansas (Apparently, the farmer was wondering why his entire herd beef cows had demanded a lawyer).

"Wasn't there an old legend about animals talking on Christmas eve or something like that ?" O'Neill asked to no-one in particular.

Daniel suddenly sat up. "Of course! The _tacen__ virtumentis_!"

A handful of bewildered stares were directed Daniel's direction.

"It was an ancient device I read about a while ago." He continued "Until now, I figured it wasn't real. It was supposedly able to counter psychic abilities by dissipating them into nearby sub-sentient minds-"

"Which would explain them talking- I think." Christine noted.

"So, in plain words.." O'Neill asked.

"The Dryad must have somehow focused a tremendous amount of telepathic energy at Earth. The device re-directed it into the nearby animals, rather than allowing it to be focused on our minds."

"The problem was, it seemed to damage the minds of nearby sentients- especially those who were experiencing hostile emotion." Daniel added.

"So the ancients built in some sort of fail-safe so it only works when there's enough "Peace on Earth" to allow it to operate safely." Jason noted.

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**Author's Note**: Well, what did you think of it?

Fellow Latin scholars will realize that invented my own word for "telepathy" - which may or may not be even close. I couldn't find my notes to double-check it.

Have a wonderful Christmas, and don't forget the true reason for the season- the birth of Christ.


End file.
